The invention relates to a process for producing hinge lid packs in which a collar comprising a collar front panel and collar side tabs projects from a pack part of the hinge lid pack, in which process said collar is placed in the form of a separate blank onto the top side of a cigarette block (a cigarette group wrapped in an inner blank made of tin foil) and the projecting collar side tabs are folded against side faces of the cigarette block which is then introduced into the hinge lid pack together with the folded collar. Furthermore, the invention relates to an apparatus for conducting the process.
Hinge lid packs are widely used as cigarette packs. They comprise a pack part and a lid hinged to a rear panel of the pack part. A collar, which is arranged in the pack part, is normally formed from a separate blank and comprises a collar front panel and collar side tabs.
Recently, hinge lid packs of this kind have appeared, in which the longitudinal edges are bevelled or polygonal (U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,383 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,384). In this pack type, upright longitudinal edges which are formed between, on the one hand, the collar front panel and, on the other hand, the collar side tabs, have to correspond to the shape of the longitudinal edges of the pack, i.e. they have to be rounded, bevelled or polygonal.